


Infinite Doors

by illuminatedjellyfish



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: F/F, Magical Girls, Yuri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2019-11-17 23:04:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18108332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illuminatedjellyfish/pseuds/illuminatedjellyfish
Summary: Infinite doors, infinite keys, an infinite amount of grief, and a finite amount of sanity.What's behind Door Number 2, Homura?





	1. The End

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Persephone's Waltz](https://archiveofourown.org/works/577310) by [ErinPtah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinPtah/pseuds/ErinPtah). 



> Hello, there! This is my first attempt at writing a ship fic with actual arcs like a full-on narrative. Please feel free to leave constructive criticism in the comments, especially if you're a fan of the show or have your own headcanon. I'll probably add more tags as the story progresses, but I'm too tired to do so at time of writing. Please note that to get the most out of this story, you should have at least watched the full series of Madoka Magica ; the movies factor into it as well, but nowhere near as much as some other fics. Without further ado, enjoy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clouds begin to gather, and both rain and tears fall in equal measure. The masses of water aren't loud enough to drown out the screams.

She stood in the rain.

A body, bruised, broken and shattered, lay at her feet. Though murky rainwater was collecting on the blackened ground beneath it, it was impossible to miss the gruesome, crimson stains that sprouted from the body like wings. How appropriate. Wings, for an angel, now ascending to whatever Heaven there was. Peering closer, a few splinters of bone peeked through her skin, their tips stained with red. Its left arm was gone. With any luck, it’d be vaporised, and not rotting away under another mountain of debris. The ragged hole that was its left shoulder seemed to have stopped bleeding ; what little blood was left must’ve finally run out. Ash, dirty and grey, streaked the cutesy pink uniform, staining it darkly. With shaking hands, Akemi Homura knelt down on her left knee, and closed Kaname Madoka’s faded-pink eyes, which were now devoid of the warm, bouncy energy that she had brought everywhere with her. 

When the girl’s hand gripped weakly at Homura’s wrist, her heart skipped a beat.

“Madoka. Madoka, stay. Stay. Don’t leave me again.” begged the raven-haired girl, now peering into her companion’s eyes, which had opened of their own accord. Though the energy had faded from them, there was a resolute determination in her younger classmate’s eyes. Her soft lips parted to speak, but no words came from them. A light cough, and a small cascade of blood was the closest she could produce. “Don’t say anything. Conserve your energy.” pressed Homura, now gripping tightly at Madoka’s wrist. The charred sleeve had burnt away long ago, leaving only the wine-coloured burn mark. A distant, calculating part of Homura’s mind realised that the pulse she felt was fading quickly. “I-I’ll get you medical attention. Something. Anything!” screamed her friend, and a look of soft acceptance crossed Madoka’s pale features. The slightest shake of the dying girl’s head sent clouds of ash and dust tumbling to the cracked ground beneath them. 

“Don’t bother… if I live, it’ll just be a few more minutes of pain.” croaked the Puella Magi, and that was enough to send Homura into a fit of tears, as the cold walls of her false personality finally came crumbling down. Metal danced upon metal as her fingers worked the mechanism on her shield, slowing time to a crawl, and then a halt. The wind, which had been howling in her ears, now fell quiet as Homura herself let loose a wild scream of anguished fury to the sky. Beads of water floated in the air, their reflective surfaces each bouncing back the unsightly image of Walpurgis Night ; her enemy, the murderer of countless Madoka Kanames, and the world-eater that she hadn’t ever defeated. Madoka herself was frozen as well, trapped in a picture of angelic beauty as the world burnt around her. Tears blurred the eyes of the girl with the shield as she stood up. Shaking hands reached into a pocket space near her shield, the slim fingers desperately probing for something. Her fingertips brushed the silky, cool surface of a bandage, and for a few desperate moments, the time-stopper allowed herself to entertain the fantasy that maybe she could patch up Madoka somehow and see her get out of this alive. But another look at Madoka sent more tears streaming down her face, and with them, the last of her warmth. Her hand emerged from the shield-space, gripping a hefty, black pistol. Homura’s eyesight hadn’t been the best before (her crimson-framed lenses would attest to that) and the rain and tears certainly wouldn’t help matters. But a shot made at point blank, where the muzzle of the gun is touching the target? She wouldn’t be able to miss if she wanted to.

Good God, she wanted to.

Time began to wind back up, the beads of liquid in the air resuming their motion, the wind picking back up in her ears, and Madoka’s hand quivering weakly in the air as she spoke again, with Herculean effort. “D-don’t… let me become…” “A witch. I know.” recited her executor dully as she knelt down again, now calmly taking hold of Madoka’s shoulder (a fine layer of grit came away on her palm) and pressing the steely barrel to the swirling black Soul Gem on her partner’s neck. “Not a witch. A Puella… Magi.” Resoluteness filled her body, flowing from her brain to what was left of her dying body. “Turn back time, Homura-chan.” begged the girl, her hand now finally giving out and dropping pathetically to the broken remnants of her uniform. A broken memory, wearing broken clothes. “I won’t, Madoka.”

“I promise.”

The shot filled the air, and though the weapon’s gunshot was loud, and the muzzle flash bright, Homura’s eyes and ears were affixed upon the black essence spilling from the shattered Soul Gem. Crystalline walls gave way, and inky clouds rolled over it, the metal structure that had held it together shattering. Grief, condensed and powerful, washed over Homura in a wave as she held the pistol up towards the massive, impending cloud. She fired once. Twice. Then, before she could process it herself, her finger moved of its own accord, pulling the trigger as she finally let loose. With bullets. With her anger, and sadness, and frustration. Brass casings clattered to the ground, occupying the now-vacant spot where Madoka Kaname had finally been laid to rest.

Again.

When the firing pin finally clicked on empty, Homura still refused to give in. In one final act of defiance, she cocked her arm back and threw. The black pistol spun end-over-end, becoming little more than a blur, as it rocketed towards the distant cloud, propelled by magic-augmented strength. And as she watched with violet eyes, it spun back down to the ground. Because no matter how strong she was, she simply couldn’t throw anything at the witch. Nothing that hurt.

One more time.  
More time.  
One more.  
One more time.

Gears clicked, the teeth interlocking and grinding to movement, as lightning cracked the sky. A brilliant, jagged sword of magical energy, which rocketed towards her. Too late. Gears spun, and the metal in her shield began to move, taking with it, the flow of time. For a few brief moments, the lightning pulled back, before the edges of her vision began to blur. Homura, in a practiced motion, shut her eyes and relaxed, allowing herself to shed one more tear for one more fallen Magical Girl. Time rewinding allowed her a small moment of silence, which only seemed to compound upon Madoka’s last words, which were replaying over and over in her mind.

A mind which had just snapped awake on a crisp, white hospital bed.


	2. Room 451

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new timeline, an old dream, and an excess of bullets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, apologies for taking so long to get the second chapter out ; my Word documents were having issues with reading, and I didn't want to take my laptop to a shop to get fixed ; thankfully, my legend of a friend managed to fix it.
> 
> Secondly, thank you all for over 100 hits. It means a lot to see a work of an old fandom skyrocket like that.
> 
> Thirdly, thank you to ErinPtah for noticing this ; means a lot to have your inspiration see what they inadvertently helped create.

Golden rivers of light coursed through the grid of blinds, forming uniform streaks of pale yellow across the hospital bed. When the well-used comforter came off, Homura took a second to stretch her legs, crinkling the sterile material of the hospital gown she wore. The room smelt vaguely of disinfectant, and a muted beeping in the background told her that in this timeline, they had hooked her up to a monitor. When her bare feet touched the linoleum floor, they did so with practiced ease. A clear tube trailed to her arm, and the vicious blade of a needle inserted into it. No doubt they were keeping her on an IV, or something similar. A firm yank sent the metallic spike tumbling to the floor, its green tether following shortly after. Intravenous liquid dribbled onto the linoleum, as Homura breathed one of her first breaths in what was effectively a new body.

Harsh fluorescents met violet eyes as Homura placed one hand on the glass, and leaned close enough that the tip of her nose brushed the transparent surface. The modest hospital room offered a sweeping, grandiose view of the city of Mitakihara ; its sprawling infrastructure now upright and intact, as cars blazed trails through the city. Mobs of people flooded the sidewalks, and the raven-haired girl let out a soft sigh. These people had no idea of the danger that would bear down on them in one month. Each of them was ignorant, and blissful, much like she used to be.  _Well._ She thought wryly as she drew back the sliding screen.  _They don't know._  
  


_But I do._

 

Forty minutes later, nurse-in-training Ari Finjiro would come to room 451 and discover an empty bed. His thorough search would reveal nothing, and if he called the police, their dusting for fingerprints, analysis of the cameras in the joining hallway, and questioning of those who had the unfortunate fate of being on-shift that day would result in nothing being found. A fruitless search. Not only did Homura have dozens of trial-and-error practice runs of this scenario (a few of which had admittedly gone catastrophically bad, astonishingly quickly), but Ari’s unfortunate schedule would drag him away from the recovery ward for an extended period of time. Ari Finjiro came back to an empty bed, and Homura was already moving back into the same unused property she’d been using as her base of operations since the eighth timeline. 

 

A clean, modest affair, which had recently been cleaned out by the landlord in preparation for its new owner. A few timelines, she had interacted with the landlord, and scoped out the rest of the apartment complex’s amenities. While it wasn’t anything fancy, knowing where the spare keys, exits, power switches, and rooftop vantage points were had given her some new avenues of options. For now… Gripped by a maniacal obsession, she planned. She saw routes, times, conflicts, interactions. Where to be, and when to be there. What to bring, what to say, and what to do (and maybe what  _ not  _ to do). Most importantly, she had her shield, and what was contained within it. 

 

Guns. Explosives. Various bits of military and black-market doo-hickeys that she had acquired from the Yakuza and Japanese military, over multiple timelines. Enough to arm a small army, its artillery regiments, its spec-ops division, and probably its support staff as well. Now, she was ready. Tomorrow was her ‘first’ day at the ‘new’ school. She had acted the part before ; an actress who memorised her lines so perfectly that all the other characters faded into mute grey by comparison. All except one ; Madoka, her co-star and tragic love interest.   
  
To her left, water coursed, sunlight gracing its surface, dancing over it like dolphins skimming its surface. The golden rays trickled down from the sky, and bled over the buildings, sidewalk, and people like a blanket of warmth. To many, the end of their working day was here. Schoolchildren walked jovially, with a spring in their step, knowing they were free from their academic prison for a few more (fleeting, and ultimately, inconsequential) hours. The sky was a rosy pink, carpeting the air above the city with an off-crimson sheen. Clouds, fluffy and warm, drifted through the sky, their edges outlined in the soft pink of dusk. 

 

Homura Akemi watched it all stand still, as colour bled from everything, leaving only varied shades of black-and-white, as the world went from chromatic to monochrome, from bustling to stock-still. Time magic would allow her to move inside the barrier, take out the witch, resume time before anyone realised what had happened, or could be negatively affected. The Witch’s Kiss couldn’t affect you if you were frozen in time, but Homura only had about five minute’s worth of magical energy stored up. And it would vanish faster the more weapons she drew from her shield’s pocket dimension. Which was why she had drawn a pistol (slim and elegant, yet hard-hitting) before approaching the magical barrier. Her time magic only allowed what she was touching to continue moving, so any bullets she fired would have to wait to become deadly.

 

The witch’s barrier was similar to a heat-haze ; a slight warping and discolouring of the air was all you could see, and that’s assuming you knew what you were looking for. Most people who didn’t tended to wander into what could only be described as a bad, bad dream.  _ Not a dream. A nightmare.  _ The miasma parted around her as she walked through, its surface freezing and dry against her exposed face. The witch, thinking it had found an oblivious passerby, invited in someone who had killed it countless times, in countless ways, with varying degrees of satisfaction. Negativity blanketed her body as she walked through, and tilting her hand as though she was observing a watch, Homura noted with dissatisfaction that the crystal embedded in her hand was beginning to fill with inky black. Hefting her pistol, she proceeded down the corridor of warped imagery.   
  
Smiles, cruel and unwavering, leered at her from wooden-panelled walls. The witch resided at the centre of its labyrinth, ideally allowing its minions to ensnare and kill whoever had wandered in, before transferring their negative energy to their master for consumption. The fear, sadness, and often, anger, found in death were powerful fuels for witches, and especially so when amplified inside their own barriers. As she continued, the alien geometry began to expose itself ; doors that led to stairs that led back to the door, floors which caused you to somehow do a full revolution while walking straight… 

  
Dizzying.   
  
Mind-bending.   
  
Headache-inducing.

 

The time traveler navigated it without a problem. At one point, she came across a darkened room ; peeking inside revealed an ambush of vines. Minions of the wish, given their own magical energy and made to serve. Curled up in thick piles, the drab green tendrils sported cruelly-curved thorns, dripping with clear poison. A paralysing agent that slowly drained at brain functions, causing paralysis, unconsciousness, and death. Homura pulled a grenade from her belt, and pulled the pin, allowing a moment for the fuse to burn down before dropping it into the midst of the time-frozen minions. The second it exited her hand, it too, froze ; grey taking over its military-green plates, and sentencing the minions to death when she unpaused time.

  
Her Soul Gem was swirling with magical energy, as well as more cloudy blackness ; about one-third of the way up, being beaten back by vibrant, glowing purple. The witch, Gertrud, stood tall and proud. Butterfly wings were in the process of unfurling from the humanoid’s back, and the translucent material caught the light in a beautiful, mesmerising way. Blossoms of rose-red adorned the humanoid’s body, and it stood frozen in time, mid-movement. Homura walked up to the witch, and without hesitation, levelled her pistol. Then, she flipped the hammer back, and started shooting. Yellow lit up her surroundings, muzzle flashes blanketing black-and-white, as the bullets exited the barrel and whizzed to a stop. Each deadly round hung in the air, inches from the witch’s face. An empty magazine clattered to the floor, and a second one replaced it, in one smooth motion. Homura’s practiced hands pushed the slide back into place, and continued firing. By now, a swarm of brass casings were hovering beside the ejection port, and dozens of bullets were on a deadly trajectory to Getrud’s face. She reloaded a second time, and clicked the slide back into position again. This time, with a loaded pistol, she stepped backwards, and willed time to  _ resume. _

 

Colour faded back into the world, a vivid canvas of the blacks-and-whites, reds, blues, browns… and lead flew. Cordite suddenly manifested in a cloud, the gunsmoke released from its time-induced prison. Spent casings fell to the floor in a shower of tinkling metal, each one bouncing lightly on the magical floor. Both magazines, exhausted of their loads, clattered to the ground as well. Gertrud, however, didn’t even get to unfurl her wings. A wall of bullets met her face, and turned it into a smoking crater. Viscera, green and vivid, splattered across the walls and ground, adding neon green to the canvas they stood upon. The humanoid’s skull was now a malformed mass, missing its structure and integrity. Within moments, the corpse of the witch began to rapidly dissipate, and Homura allowed the ghost of a smile to tug at the corners of her lips as she heard a distant, muffled boom. Flecks of green coated the floor, forming a thin sheen, akin to a puddle. Homura reached into the substance, which was oddly cold. Her slim fingers closed around a metallic object, its slick engravings providing a handhold as she dug it out.   
  
A Grief Seed.

One of the most necessary evils in the world, and also the currency that Puella Magi ran on. She’d seen firsthand the results of running out of them. Nightmares, flying and swooping. Bad dreams come to life, and harsh memories given life. They were precious, and could suck away the corruption and negativity inside her Soul Gem, ensuring she herself wouldn’t be overtaken by the same nightmares she fought to kill. Arguably, they were life-and-death for the Magical Girls. Invaluable above all else, to the point that territory with witches was a big problem. Too much demand, and not enough supply, with an armoury of magical weapons? Anarchy. She had this one all to herself, and without having to worry about anybody finding it and fighting her for it. The miasma dissipated around her, as did her magical outfit. Grey gave way to the painfully bright spectrum of reds, yellows and oranges that splashed the sky and its clouds. Water trickled, a muted rhythm in the background that was the music to the pulse of the city. Its tune was the tune of humans ; a reckless, irregular beat that didn’t stop for anything. This one Grief Seed could keep Homura’s time magic, her greatest advantage, from filling her Soul Gem with the negative feedback that came with using it. It was an invaluable tool, better than almost any weapon in her arsenal, and when it came to Puella Magi? An invaluable bargaining chip.

 

Homura left it on Tomoe Mami’s windowsill. The cradle of metal surrounding the Grief Seed sparkled wetly in the moonlight, its silver sheen outlining the darkness contained within the crystalline structure. Wisps of jetblack vapour scraped angrily against the inside of the Seed, and it took a Herculean effort not to instead crush it against the wooden windowsill.    
  
Yellow strands of hair resting upon a pillow were last thing Homura’s eyes saw before she stepped off the apartment’s windowsill, landing effortless and lightly on her feet. The time traveler’s eyes left twin trails of violet, soaked into the black curtain of the night sky. If anyone were to see, they’d dismiss it as a trick of the light, or a nearby light show. But nobody saw.   
  
Homura was very careful about that. 

 


	3. Two-Tone Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pastries are a girl's best friend.
> 
> Unless you're Madoka.

The trees wept.

Their petals, pink, delicate, and falling by the dozen, spiralled towards the ground in an intricate dance of peach and white. The branches above bled their offspring, allowing the wind’s persistence to pluck free the less resilient petals and send them flying wherever the wind pleased. A carpet of the sakurai petals was swallowed beneath the rush of morning students’ shoes, each one clamouring for position and room. Above the trees, a blue sky, peppered with fluffy white clouds heralded the beginning of a new day. The double-barreled chime of the morning bell sounded over the courtyard, the call of another day of higher learning. Madoka Kaname’s distinctive profile weaved in and out of the masses ; her hairstyle, matching the colour of the petals falling around it, was all that allowed Sayaka Miki to distinguish her classmate from the throng of students, especially given her birds-eye view from the third-storey window. Impatiently, Miki counted in her head, the numbers rising, and her patience falling.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

The door burst open, as a slightly-bedraggled looking Madoka tumbled through, almost losing her footing until Sayaka (having been waiting by the door to ambush her best friend) caught her roughly by snagging the pink-haired girl’s wrist and spinning her in a smooth semi-circle. Sayaka hadn’t ever been one for teasing Madoka (too much, anyway) but this opportunity was too perfect to pass up. With a wiggle of her eyebrows, the cobalt-haired girl opened her lips and spoke the words that would sign Madoka’s death warrant. “I know you’re clumsy and I’m amazing, but don’t go falling for me. People will get the wrong impression.” It was the smoothest thing that Madoka had ever heard or seen, and she couldn’t help but blush virulently, a blooming rose-red filling her cheeks until all she could stutter out was a confused, “huh?” Sayaka didn’t respond verbally, opting to pull her best friend close and crush her in a hug in front of the entire class. “I was worried. You’re never late, ever.” The pink-haired girl’s bright smile lost a bit of its trademark luminescence as she recalled the reason why.

“Had a bad dream.”

Half-formed memories conjured themselves from scattered thoughts in Madoka’s mind, coalescing into something otherworldly. A stormcloud of gargantuan proportions. It was darker than the deepest pits, and loomed like a malevolent god over the city of Mikihara. And the storm wasn’t raining down mere water, or simple hail, or even wicked bolts of lightning. No. It was raining death. “Hey. Madoka.” A sharp sting against her forehead brought her conscious mind to her brain’s controls, and she struggled to focus both eyes on Sayaka as the vestiges of the nightmare drained from her mind. “Did you just flick me?” complained Madoka, rubbing her forehead with the palm of her hand, and shooting an annoyed glance at her friend. The blue-eyed girl simply deflected it with an innocent grin that proclaimed she wouldn’t hurt a fly, before turning around and striding to their shared desk. The shorter of the two followed with a sullen look on her face, glaring at Sayaka as they both sat down. As she often did, Madoka found herself daydreaming again ; the curtain of clouds which sped by was a measure of her internal clock, counting down towards the end of the school day, and release from the prison named “Mikihara Academy”. Each fluffy cloud which rolled by was another shape morphed into a tangible concept by Madoka’s wandering mind. Sayaka, however, nudged her arm and nodded towards the clock, whose hands were winding down to lunch, freedom and fresh air.

When the bell finally rang, its two-toned chime was music to the students’ ears, as the daily stampede towards the classroom doors and hallways began. Up flights of stairs and past dozens of students. Past the bright pink vending machine. And onto the smooth stone tiles of the roof. A few other milled around, but Sayaka’s liberal use of elbows and pushing through the throng of people in the halls had reserved Madoka a precious seat on the lone rooftop bench. She collapsed into the familiar wooden structure, and offered a wordless, thankful grin to Sayaka. The blue-haired girl simply nodded towards Madoka’s bento box, with an equal lack of words. The ones that Madoka brought from home were always the best. “...” “Don’t give me that look. You practically owe it to me for forcing me to wait so long for my best friend this morning.” smirked the blue-haired girl, reclining on the bench and tucking her hands behind her head, as though she didn’t have a care in the world (which, regarding her stance towards homework, wasn’t far from the truth). Madoka peeled the pink lid off, silently tipping a rice-ball into Sayaka’s lap and producing a pair of chopsticks to eat the rest of it with. “You’re no fun, Madoka…” she complained breezily, before wolfing it down. The ghost of a smile yanked on Sayaka’s lips, however, before it faded. Their conversations always went like this ; in fact, the two often couldn’t be more different in how they approached things, which on paper should’ve led them to butt heads constantly ; instead, the two were perfect foils to each other. Pink and blue, to match their personalities. Sayaka’s brash self was off on some long-winded tirade again, but Madoka allowed herself a smile.

_I still have no idea how we became friends._ It wasn’t exactly difficult to see how different both of them were, but despite their conflicting personalities, the two got along wonderfully. Well, except for that one group project. But the shouting match had prompted them both to suppress that memory. “Fire-forged friends” wasn’t exactly a perfect descriptor. More like “strangers who were seemingly joined at the hip”. Texts sent would always be responded to instantly (though sleepy-eyed bleariness was a bit iffy, especially on weekends), and the two would always be able to read the other with a single glance. Without a doubt, their chemistry was bonded to each of them, and each of them to the other. The bell heralded the end of the school day. Madoka let herself breathe a quiet sigh of relief, and jumped a little in her chair as Sayaka let out a victorious cry of joy. Walking home over the paved pathways, the two strode side-by-side, their gleaming black shoes creating a tempo as they went. Click-click. Click-click. Click-click. The blue sky was beginning to fade into the faintest hints of orange and gold, bordering the clouds with a thin purple tint as sunset smiled over the exodus of students from Mitakihara Middle School heading wherever they pleased. A simple routine, and one that had become an extremely simple, autopiloted journey as of late.

Their legs would walk of their own accord as the two put their brainpower to much more important use, such as discussing what to get at the bakery. Golden pastries cheerfully adorned the shop’s windows, as Sayaka gazed longingly into the glass, and at the treasure contained within. “We can get some if you want. I still have some yen leftove-” began Madoka, before she was cut off by a frantically flailing hand from Sayaka, urging her to be quiet. The shorter of the two found herself a victim of Sayaka’s azure gaze, as her junior locked her with a vicious glare. “Not another word. I already took some of your lunch ; how could I rob such a gracious soul twice in one day?” wailed Sayaka melodramatically, reeling back from the glass cabinet in mock horror… And shooting straight past Madoka, who was now somehow closer to the counter, and wow, that girl moved fast- Ow. Pain. Lots of it. The shopowner stared at the two, but seeing nothing broken or hurt, shrugged and turned back to serving the next customer. Madoka’s soft touch found Sayaka’s arm. “I’ll get you one to make up for that.” giggled her senior. Sayaka harumphed, but let a traitorous smile through. “Sorry for not catching you.”

_You’re falling for the wrong one, Madoka Kaname._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is different in quite a few ways. I switched up my writing style and the chapter is shorter, not to mention much more comedic than melancholy. Please, tell me which of the two you prefer. The darker, more serious and gritty tone of the first two chapters, or this light, fluffy and whimsical third one.


End file.
